MP 'devastated' over Facebook profile hack

'Outlawed from cyberspace and unable to communicate with my cyber friends'

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A backbench Tory MP was left "devastated" after his Facebook account was hacked.

Michael Fabricant, 58, spoke of his anguish in a posting on his personal website last week. The Lichfield MP's Facebook profile was suspended after his account was pwned by hackers and used to send malicious spam to his 1,500 contacts.

The malicious messages said "Look at this!" and directed surfers to a page containing malware.

"I am devastated," the Boris Johnson lookalike writes. "This has never happened to me before and I can only apologise.

"If any of my Facebook Friends get a message from me called 'Look at this' - Don't! I did when I received a similar message and look what happened to me. Outlawed from cyberspace and unable to communicate now with my cyber friends".

Security watchers at Sophos reckon the details of the attacks fits the pattern of a phishing attack doing the rounds last week.

Fabricant has changed his password and emailed Facebook with a "begging message asking for his account to be restored", according to the MP's own account of the ordeal. The MP's profile from TheyWorkForYou can be found here and more on his enthusiasm for Facebook can be found here.

Despite having a impressive 1,500 online friends, a Facebook group of self-declared Facebook fans of the Lichfield MP numbers just 14. On a more positive note, he's among the MPs that claims the least on expenses, ranking 569th of 645 last year. ®